Happy 30th Birthday Act! – You Don’t Look a Day Over 10

Karen is the author of thirteen books on CRM and the Act! lynda.com training videos. She is the founder of the Virtual ACT! Users Group and holds quarterly webinars focusing on CRM best practices. Her goal is to make companies more efficient, productive and profitable through best CRM practices. You can find more on Karen at Tech Benders.

Wow! As hard as it is to believe, the Act! software program is celebrating its 30th birthday this year. If you’re into numbers that translates into 19 versions, six owners and millions of users.

Believe it or not, it is not unusual for me to have a client tell me that he’s been using Act! for nearly 30 years, or that he still has his version 3 installation disks. Act! users are extremely loyal and with good reason: Act! is a great product!

I received an e-mail this week from a long-time Act! user who was unhappy about being “forced” to upgrade because his old Act! v2000 (circa 1998) wouldn’t run on his new Windows 10 computer. Personally, I’d say that after 17 years of use he’s certainly gotten his money’s worth! Ironically, the cost of Act! Pro is actually pretty close to what it was back in 1986.

I for one could not return to the “old” Act! software because I would miss the new features too darn much. My two favorite features – Groups and Opportunities – were features that I advised my clients to avoid in Act! 6 because of their limited functionality.

Other newer features include the great integration between Act! and Outlook, the Relationships and Web Info tabs, and the Web API which was just added in v18. The nice thing about Act! is that even though new features are added, the old “basic” features remain the same. Users of Act! 6 will already know the Act! basics such as adding, editing or deleting a contact and performing a lookup to find a segment of contacts.

If you want to use Act! just as a glorified Rolodex and calendar, you can continue to use your old clunker of a machine with an older version of Act!. But if you want to enter the 21st Century and take advantage of those “newfangled features” such as e-marketing and social networking you’ll want to keep your version of Act! current.

Over the course of its 30-year history, Act! has evolved from a basic contact manager to a full-fledged relational CRM system that can manage virtually every aspect of your business.

Act! was the first true contact manager and paved the way for many other competing products. However, Act! is the only software in the CRM segment that has a 30-year track record and has been around twice as long as any of its competition. It’s also the only CRM product that gives you a choice of installation options so that you aren’t “forced” to use Act! only in the “clouds.”

Happy Birthday, Act!. Here’s to another 30 years of continued success!